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Neuropeptide evolution and function

Neuropeptides are a diverse assemblage of signalling molecules that have key roles in the regulation of behaviour. Understanding the evolutionary relationships and functions of the plethora of neuropeptides has presented a considerable challenge to biologists. Based on presentations and discussions at a Royal Society meeting in 2017, three companion Review articles by Elphick et al., Jékely et al. and DeLaney et al. discuss advances in our knowledge of neuropeptide evolution and function and the techniques that have facilitated progress in this field of research.

The exquisite bright colours of Pachyrhynchus weevils were thought by Alfred Russel Wallace to warn off potential predators, but whether this warning related to their hard exteriors, their spiky legs or some irritating taste had never been tested. Now, a century and half later, a team from Taiwan revisits this question and suggest that hardness itself acts as an effective secondary defence.

In our latest early-career researcher interview, Brooke Flammang, Assistant Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, tells us about her research journey (including writing her Master's thesis in an ambulance while working as a paramedic), the importance of collaboration in integrative biology, and her approach to teaching.

"The paper provided the first quantitative field evidence of the way that animals might gain protection from predation by seeking cover in a group of other similar animals. This protection is known as the dilution effect."

William Foster discusses ‘Evidence for the dilution effect in the selfish herd from fish predation on a marine insect’, the 1981 classic he published in Nature with John Treherne, former JEB Editor-in-Chief.